Coming to Terms
by kittyfajitas
Summary: "Damon looks at me and he tries to make me laugh and his eyes say "yes, this is extremely serious, but, hey, what can you do but laugh in the face of death?" And I want so badly to be serious and stoic because that's what seems appropriate, but the absurdity of our lives is hilarious in its own sick way , and so I want to dance on our graves and laugh with him."
1. Chapter 1

Dear Diary,

I think I finally get it. The urge, the hunger, it's almost uncontrollable. I'm starting to respect Damon more for being able to put it in its place, for not letting it control him absolutely. For being able to let just enough of the terrible instinct in to function and survive without letting it consume him. It doesn't look like it, but the self-restraint that he shows, and the ability to not hate himself for it - it's self-preservation. I wasn't always ready to save myself as a human, but now it seems that there is so much more to live for. I might be able to entertain ideas I never thought I would if it means my survival. I don't have my whole life ahead of me, I already died. Now I have LIVES ahead of me. I can finally choose my own fate.

I'm so tired of apologizing. It's like everyone is so disappointed in me for not being "Elena" anymore. Why is it ok for them to have changed when they became vampires, but all the changes in me are just so depressing to everyone? It's like all their hopes and dreams of being connected to their own humanity were pinned on me. And I am just so tired of it all. All of the expectations and being told _how I am,_ _how I'll feel. _I feel guilty for not being what they expect, what they need me to be. But I didn't ask for this, and I need to be able to find my own way through it without all the constant pressure and worry. Why can't they all just let me BE? I know they love me, and they are just trying to help and protect me, but I'm beginning to suspect that I'm stronger than all of them. Wasn't it me who starved for three days and then had her very first feed in the middle of a church full of people with a hunter literally waiting in the wings? And I stopped myself. No one had to pull me off of Matt.

So, yeah, I lied to Stefan. How could I not when he's just so full of guilt and regret and fear for me? I shouldn't have to be the one to break it to him that, _no - I'm not human and never can be again. _ I shouldn't have to be the one to comfort him and Caroline through the tragedy of my own death. How is it possible that they can all be vampires and know about the violent urges and the bloodlust and the ever present desire to kill and still pretend like the only way it will change me is that I will have to adjust my diet? All of them except for Damon. I think he knows. I think he knows the feeling that in death, you can truly live in a way that was never an option as a human. Especially for someone like me, whose entire life was teetering precariously on the edge of death, at the mercy of the whims of others. So, no, Human Elena would never consider taking pleasure in others' lives being at the mercy of her own whims. But I'm not so sure how Vampire Elena feels about that yet… She's considering it. And that does scare me. It scares me that my un-life can only continue - literally - on the life-blood of others. It scares me that no matter how badly everyone wishes it weren't so, I am going to kill someone. But it mostly scares me that I think I can find a way to be ok with that. It scares me that I might be stronger than I ever thought I was, strong enough to come to terms with this horror.

Stefan scares me in a way I never thought he would. What I don't know is if Damon scares me the way he used to. Everyone says Damon is the dangerous one, always living in the in-between spaces of anti-hero and villain, reckless and impulsive and prone to violent outbursts. But he owns being a vampire in a way that gives me hope for myself. But Stefan and his denial and the way he can't live in the in-between spaces, the way he's either all purity and light or vile and degraded, that's what scares me now. Somehow, now, that seems more dangerous than Damon could ever be. After all those times I told Damon that he was horrible and wrong for his lack of value for human life, it might actually turn out that his way is the path to living with yourself as a vampire. I guess that's just something that a human can never really comprehend.

Being a vampire means being at war with yourself. A war between the reality of being the predator and the memory of being the prey. I don't know if I can ever win the war, but I don't think the losing battles have to be the spectacular defeats that Stefan makes them. You have to take your licks and keep soldiering on. Being human was like that, too. Oldest, deadliest vampire of all time wants to sacrifice you? Hold your head up and go to school. Only remaining parental figures die as a result of a blood sacrifice to break a curse? Get up, breathe, eat, sleep, and do it all over again. Love of your life ripping people limb from limb up and down the eastern seaboard? Make some chili, put your game face on, and go to a picnic. I wonder if Damon's time in the war as a human is what prepared him for this. Lord knows I just lived through two years of war, so maybe I'm better prepared, too. Maybe that's why I went to Damon for help - because he can accept the realities of war. He can accept that war turns you into something else and we don't exactly know what that something else is going to be. War makes you do things you never thought you were capable of doing.

Stefan thinks I betrayed him by lying, and you know, maybe I did. But I feel a little bit betrayed myself. Because I can see in Stefan's eyes all that he's not saying. I can see that he doesn't want to accept me like this, that he doesn't even want me to accept myself like this. If I don't hate myself for being a vampire, then I will fall off the pedestal of perfect human goodness and compassion that he so carefully erected for me. I feel betrayed because I don't think he can love me like this, and if that's true does that mean he ever truly loved me at all? Was I just a symbol of the human life he was robbed of? He can't even see me - it's like he can't look at me directly. I saw myself in the mirror. Drawn and pale with dark circles under my eyes and parched lips. And even when I told him something was wrong he just wanted a distraction, so we popped champagne and celebrated something that didn't even happen. And I let myself be distracted for a moment, but in the back of my mind I was wondering how the hell I was going to get through this without him. When he found out I went to Damon he was angry at me. He couldn't see that the compassion he so values in me was what made me lie, that I didn't want to destroy all the hopes that he had pinned on me. I didn't want his castle with Human Elena That Lives Forever to come crashing down and crush him in the rubble. But it did anyway.

I want - so badly I want - for our pure and uncomplicated love to continue. But reality is setting in, and the truth is when I chose him _always_ was something I would deal with later. But now _always_ actually means _eternity_. I don't know if Stefan can love me for eternity, not like this. And I love myself enough to know that I can't be with someone who doesn't accept me for who I am.


	2. Chapter 2

Dear Diary,

They've always told me there was a humanity switch that you can turn on and off. I wonder if that's what this is. Because I feel like a part of me died when I went off that bridge for the third time last night - but when Damon said "third times a charm" I don't think he meant the third time would be the moment when I finally let go of all those human conventions of what is right and wrong for my life. After being tortured all day by the failed expectations and guilt from my human self, after this crash course in living with my demons, there was a moment - a brief moment - nothing more than a deep breath - where I let go of all of that. A moment where it didn't matter whether I _deserved_ to live or not, but where I just felt _the desire to live_ no matter what has happened or what is still in store for me. And there was poetry in Damon being the one with me at that moment. Because somehow he is all wrapped up in my desires and who I am and who I want to be. When I woke up he was there. I was safe in my bed, and clean, with my ring, and he was there cracking jokes as if he hadn't spent however many hours shielding me from the sun under the water, searching for my ring in the muck, bringing me home and cleaning me and laying me down. He just pretended that his biggest fear hadn't been seconds away from being realized.

Somehow I saw myself reflected in his eyes from where he sat on the window seat. I saw what he sees, and I saw him clearly. And what I saw was not hope. It was acceptance. Maybe he's been looking at me like that this whole time, but I was afraid to see it because if someone else looked at me like that, like it was ok for me to be what I am, it would mean I might have to accept myself for what I've become. But this morning when he looked at me I felt like I'd come home within myself.

He said that the rough patch Stefan and I have been going through was just because Stefan was trying to help me and shield me from false hope. He thinks it's because Stefan lied to me. He told me about the cure because he loves both of us, he wants us to be happy, and he doesn't think happiness can be had without honesty. I think when I held his hand he felt what I felt, he felt the connection, but he's never wanted my love to be founded on lies and secrets. So, like Damon always does, he forced the issue. But he doesn't know what I know now. That the love Stefan is holding onto is love for a girl that died. That Stefan hasn't looked at me with acceptance since I became a vampire. That when I look in Stefan's eyes, all that is reflected is dashed hopes and defeat. I can never un-see that look in his eyes. I wondered, before, if Stefan could love me for eternity the way I am. Now I know that he can't, because he was willing to lie to me and compel Jeremy so that he could get that girl back. Stefan loves that human girl so much, he is willing to risk losing the me that exists now. And, yes, I want to get her back, too. But I'm just not sure that's possible anymore. Even if I can be cured from needing blood to live, something happened yesterday that killed the Elena that he loves. That Elena was so ensnared by guilt for living, and regret for existing, and hope for a life that could never have been. In this moment, who I am now feels somehow… Free. Free in a way I never felt as a human. Free to be what I am without the constant guilt. It doesn't have to be a daily struggle the way Stefan said it would be.

It seems that since this started the only times I've felt comfortable in my own skin have been when I'm with Damon. The girl that went over the bridge last night could never have admitted that, but I am so tired of hiding from myself and hiding myself from everyone else. All of these emotions, everything I've been burying and secreting away in my diary, it is just too much to stuff down anymore. These feelings are too powerful and they are bursting through my carefully constructed walls. Those walls that were built when I was a human girl to protect myself and everyone I loved from being scared and worrying too much. Those human walls are not strong enough to restrain these vampire emotions.

How can I judge Damon any longer when I know - really know - the struggle and the strength and the suffering that comes when you accept yourself as a murderer? My subconscious knew it and I still refused to accept it - but I am capable of murder -am a murderer - and yet I am also capable of living with myself. I'm not going to crumble under the weight of it. And all the desire and the longing for Damon suddenly doesn't seem so out of bounds any more. It doesn't seem to contradict what I stand for. It seems like what I need to live. And I know I've used him and abused his love for me, but he still loves me anyway. He loved that selfish, naïve little girl and he loves the strong, capable woman. He loves the compassion and the humanity and he loves the ruthless killer. I'm so wound up in contradictions and he is too, and he loves me for it and his love may just let me love myself. But what does that even mean? All I know is that I keep being told _who I am, how I should be, how I will be, what I'll feel_. But what does it mean that when I sit quietly with myself, none of what they say is true? Does it mean that all these people that love me don't really know me at all? Because they say that who you are is heightened when you become a vampire, but all those qualities that I've been defined by aren't what define who I've become. I guess it makes sense that since I'm the only one who sees Damon for who he really is, he would be the one to see me for who I really am. Just like I can love the dirtiest, darkest, most selfish parts of his soul, he can love those parts of me, too. Damon loves the parts that everyone else refuses to even acknowledge. I think Damon may have more compassion for me than I have for myself, than he has for himself. I don't know - is this what love really is?

All I do know right now is that I have to go downstairs and talk to Stefan but all I want to do is wrap myself up in Damon and let him hold me and look into his eyes and know that someone really sees me, and loves me anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Dear Diary,

Stefan and I are done, I think permanently this time. It was easier to just take all the blame. I mean, I am to blame. For changing. For not being honest about it. For telling him that I chose him and then not trusting him with my whole heart. I really did believe that I could love Stefan the way I used to. He's to blame, too, though it wouldn't have helped anything to tell him that. He and Caroline are blaming Damon, even more than they're blaming me. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less. According to them, Damon is the cause of everything wrong in the world, and I have now fallen under the category of things that are wrong. I'm sorry that Stefan is hurt, but I don't think I'm sorry for turning away from that.

Maybe I'm fickle, but life is just more fun with Damon. Things seem new and exciting and I can _just be_ and there is not an undercurrent of guilt and angst tainting everything. He'll dance and joke and play and enjoy being young with me. I'm so ready to enjoy being young again, like I did before my parents died. What's between me and Damon, it's full of lust and desire and electricity, but it goes so far past that, too. It's about when Damon takes my face in his hands, when he looks into my eyes, when he tells me we will make it through, that he'll never leave me, even if I don't love him. And I believe him. I trust him. He won't abandon me, no matter what I do or who I become.

Damon looks at me and he tries to make me laugh and his eyes say "yes, this is extremely serious, but, hey, what can you do but laugh in the face of death?" And I want so badly to be serious and stoic because that's what seems appropriate, but the absurdity of our lives is hilarious in its own sick way, and so I want to dance on our graves and laugh with him. What are we doing anyway, but biding our time? There's always another shoe waiting to drop. Might as well try to enjoy what we've got when we've got it. I'm glad he's here to distract me from the gravity of a situation I have no power to control. And I know he's always got some diabolical plan in the works that I won't agree with and won't know about until it's too late, but damn it, he's always right, even if I hate it. And I can't help but trust him because even if he's the "bad guy", he is always looking at the end game. And the end game is me being alive. Even if it frightens me, having a loaded weapon pointed directly at any threat to myself, a weapon I don't have any control over, it's comforting in a disturbed way. He acts like the costs don't matter but he still does what he can to protect the people that I love. He will always choose me, but what was unsaid is that he will protect my heart - the people I love - until it comes down to them or me with no other way out. Only then will he throw my heart aside to protect my life. To Damon life comes first, happiness comes second. Because happiness can be recovered, but once you're dead, you're dead. And can I really blame someone for loving me like that? Even if that kind of love scares me... I might be capable of that kind of love, myself. And while I might yell and scream at him, the truth is, if it wasn't for his dreadful love I might not be here to yell and scream in the first place.

Caroline says I let Damon "worm his way into my newbie vampire heart" but she knows as well as I do that he was already in my heart. Stefan thinks that he pushed me toward Damon when he was the Ripper, and he doesn't understand why I would still have feelings for him. Good lord, their denial is suffocating me. As if Stefan being back magically undoes all of the months that it was Damon & I teaming up against the world. As if all the times Damon was there for me, to rescue me, to support me, to be my partner and my friend, to make me laugh while my heart was breaking and to make me forget the gloom for a split second, all those times don't matter anymore because Stefan is back and he is the "good brother," he is the "right choice."

What do those words even mean, "good" and "right?" Can we even dare to use those words to describe any of us? Because I've seen both of them be good and bad. I've been good and bad. I mean, I am a girl who, even as a human, was able to justify to herself the murder of innocent people by her friends. A girl who could say without shame that she was in love with a man that mass murdered and terrified people for fun. So when it comes down to it, my ability to judge what is "good" and "right" was thrown out the window the moment I found out Stefan was a vampire.

I could write a pro and con list of evils committed with Damon on one side and Stefan on the other and they'd probably come out pretty evenly. What scoring system should I use? Body count? Stefan has taken that number by a landslide. Number of bad decisions? Clearly Damon. Number of times they've terrified me? Pretty close call - though Stefan's the only one I ever believed would actually kill me. Number of times they've terrified others? Again - pretty even on that score. At this point Stefan has brought himself neck in neck - _ha, vampire pun_ - with Damon on the "evil vampire" score card. And no amount of bunnies eaten and abstaining are going to bring him back from that. Somehow he still thinks he has the moral high ground. I can't fault him for that, because he has to believe it, it's the only way he knows how to survive, and, hey, we do what we have to do to get by.

The thing is, I chose to live in a world of vampires long before I was dragged into it by Klaus. And in this world the difference between right and wrong has never been black and white, no matter how badly we tried to pretend it was. How could I have ever loved Stefan if I really thought that way? Things just aren't as simple as I wanted to make them out to be. Damon makes me face that. He forces me to think about the gray area of morality that I've been living in. He never sugar coats it, and that's refreshing because I can't get that anywhere else. He doesn't let me live in denial because denial gets you nowhere. He saw where denial has gotten Stefan, and he won't let me do that to myself. Not that I think he ever believed I would turn into Stefan. Once he saw that I could handle the reality of Stefan's dark side, he stopped shielding me from the truth, no matter how harsh.

Stefan wants to go back, to before he was the Ripper. He doesn't want to move forward from where we stand now. The only way he can move forward is to pretend the last few months never happened. He can't face it. But I can't pretend anymore. And Damon and I - we're growing together. We have grown together. Not just in the way that we've gotten closer, though that's true, too. We're helping each other to grow separately as people, to grow into whole people unto ourselves. As we grow, we're starting to meet in the middle. He helps me trust my instincts and I help him to think before acting on his. We're both learning to say out loud what we feel. I'm teaching him to risk caring and he's teaching me to care for myself. I don't know if we are headed for a grand romance or will have an epic love. I just know that I feel happy when I'm with him, and lonely when I'm without him.

So what it really boils down to at this point is what I want _right now_. Cure or no cure, there is no turning back for me.


End file.
